#it’s a human survival issue

[food-for-daisies]

Until the United States can, on a cultural scale, reframe climate change as a failing of not only the government, but of class, compassion, and common sense, the country will always be vulnerable to disaster.

The Los Angeles wildfires didn’t have to happen. It’s not an accident that they’ve escalated so dramatically. Government action, informed forestry, and increased mitigation planning could have prevented this historic loss of life and property, and the same goes for every other disaster we’ve witnessed/experienced this year. Why are our aid organizations underfunded? Why are our cities so vulnerable? Why is our infrastructure so weak? Why, in the midst of disaster, are our politicians attacking our most essential resources instead of working with their fellows to ways to improve the response system? To help? Isn’t that supposed their job?? What are we (the taxpayers) paying them for???

There are a thousand actions and a thousand questions that could have prevented this. You should be angry if your representatives didn’t ask, didn’t act. The planet’s a team sport, and they’re not playing.

[ciderjacks]

Chilchuck is one of those special characters where you learn about his past and you go “ohhhh that explains a lot” except where for most characters this happens like once or maybe twice, with Chilchuck it happens literally any time you learn anything at all about him, and every time it’s explaining a different thing he has going on.

[whaliiwatching]

a taste of hannibal, a touch of megamind, a shot of venom (pours the whole damn bottle)

i love venom (2018) a lot, it’s my go-to movie when i’m bored or sad, i have seen it many many times. i saw it again a week or so ago with a bud and finally had the opportunity to pen down this lovely au i’ve been thinkin bout

i’ve got a much more fleshed out sketch of how this au plays out. not sure if i’ll write it yet

anyway some bullet points

noir (called, ofc, noir) arrives on earth-138 in the 1920s. his first host is robbie and they basically go through the venom movie, where noir slowly learns to love earth and humanity and all that jazz. up until the 50s or so they’re an investigative reporter and occasionally a scary vigilante superhero!

when robbie is killed (not ewaf style. i forbid it), it fucking devastates noir and he host-hops for a bit, doing fun anarchy things to keep up robbie’s legacy but also losing a few morals here and there. he can do a little murder and eat nazis as a treat

the symbiotes arrive en masse and osborn infects humans with them to turn into his fascist riot police army

through vampire-hunting-esque shenanigans, hobie and noir meet, and strike up a tenuous truce to fight the government. hobie does not like him at first, but noir very much does ;)

cue a slow burn gothic romance between a freedom fighter and a devoted monster <3

[polterhaze]

Jimmy and Curly from mouthwashing are unironically such important comfort characters to me as crazy as it sounds. Their human portrayal does insane things to my brain as someone struggling with severe mental health issues and trauma.

I see different ugly/scary parts of myself in both of them. Stuff from my intrusive thoughts that scares me, the way system fails mentally ill, and such. So yeah, these two and their narrative regarding mental health and accountability matters a lot to me.

Also some of you are ableist as fuck in the ways you talk about Jimmy lmao. We can absolutely talk about his wrongs and the evil he has done without punching down people that hallucinate, are delusional or suffer from personality disorders.

EDIT: adding my tags because I am deathly afraid of being misunderstood

[dailyanarchistposts]

III. Toward an Anarchist Film Theory

In his article “What is Anarchist Cultural Studies?” Jesse Cohn argues that anarchist cultural studies (ACS) can be distinguished from critical theory and consumer-agency theory along several trajectories (Cohn, 2009: 403–24). Among other things, he writes, ACS tries “to avoid reducing the politics of popular culture to a simplistic dichotomy of ‘reification’ versus ‘resistance’” (ibid., 412). On the one hand, anarchists have always balked at the pretensions of “high culture” even before these were exposed and demystified by the likes of Bourdieu in his theory of “cultural capital.” On the other hand, we always sought ought and found “spaces of liberty — even momentary, even narrow and compromised — within capitalism and the State” (ibid., 413). At the same time, anarchists have never been content to find “reflections of our desires in the mirror of commercial culture,” nor merely to assert the possibility of finding them (ibid.). Democracy, liberation, revolution, etc. are not already present in a culture; they are among many potentialities which must be actualized through active intervention.

If Cohn’s general view of ACS is correct, and I think it is, we ought to recognize its significant resonance with the Foucauldian tertia via outlined above. When Cohn claims that anarchists are “critical realists and monists, in that we recognize our condition as beings embedded within a single, shared reality” (Cohn, 2009: 413), he acknowledges that power actively affects both internal (subjective) existence as well as external (intersubjective) existence. At the same time, by arguing “that this reality is in a continuous process of change and becoming, and that at any given moment, it includes an infinity — bounded by, situated within, ‘anchored’ to the concrete actuality of the present — of emergent or potential realities” (ibid.), Cohn denies that power (hence, reality) is a single actuality that transcends, or is simply “given to,” whatever it affects or acts upon. On the contrary, power is plural and potential, immanent to whatever it affects because precisely because affected in turn. From the standpoint of ACS and Foucault alike, then, culture is reciprocal and symbiotic — it both produces and is produced by power relations. What implications might this have for contemporary film theory?

At present the global film industry — not to speak of the majority of media — is controlled by six multinational corporate conglomerates: The News Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, Viacom, Time Warner, Sony Corporation of America, and NBC Universal. As of 2005, approximately 85% of box office revenue in the United States was generated by these companies, as compared to a mere 15% by so-called “independent” studios whose films are produced without financing and distribution from major movie studios. Never before has the intimate connection between cinema and capitalism appeared quite as stark.

As Horkheimer and Adorno argued more than fifty years ago, the salient characteristic of “mainstream” Hollywood cinema is its dual role as commodity and ideological mechanism. On the one hand, films not only satisfy but produce various consumer desires. On the other hand, this desire-satisfaction mechanism maintains and strengthens capitalist hegemony by manipulating and distracting the masses. In order to fulfill this role, “mainstream” films must adhere to certain conventions at the level of both form and content. With respect to the former, for example, they must evince a simple plot structure, straightforwardly linear narrative, and easily understandable dialogue. With respect to the latter, they must avoid delving deeply into complicated social, moral, and philosophical issues and should not offend widely-held sensibilities (chief among them the idea that consumer capitalism is an indispensable, if not altogether just, socio-economic system). Far from being arbitrary, these conventions are deliberately chosen and reinforced by the culture industry in order to reach the largest and most diverse audience possible and to maximize the effectiveness of film-as-propaganda.

“Avant garde” or “underground cinema,” in contrast, is marked by its self — conscious attempt to undermine the structures and conventions which have been imposed on cinema by the culture industry — for example, by presenting shocking images, employing unusual narrative structures, or presenting unorthodox political, religious, and philosophical viewpoints. The point in so doing is allegedly to “liberate” cinema from its dual role as commodity and ideological machine (either directly, by using film as a form of radical political critique, or indirectly, by attempting to revitalize film as a serious art form).

Despite its merits, this analysis drastically oversimplifies the complexities of modern cinema. In the first place, the dichotomy between “mainstream” and “avant-garde” has never been particularly clear-cut, especially in non-American cinema. Many of the paradigmatic European “art films” enjoyed considerable popularity and large box office revenues within their own markets, which suggests among other things that “mainstream” and “avant garde” are culturally relative categories. So, too, the question of what counts as “mainstream” versus “avant garde” is inextricably bound up in related questions concerning the aesthetic “value” or “merit” of films. To many, “avant garde” film is remarkable chiefly for its artistic excellence, whereas “mainstream” film is little more than mass-produced pap. But who determines the standards for cinematic excellence, and how? As Dudley Andrews notes,

[...] [C]ulture is not a single thing but a competition among groups. And, competition is organized through power clusters we can think of as institutions. In our own field certain institutions stand out in marble buildings. The NEH is one; but in a different way, so is Hollywood, or at least the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Standard film critics constitute a sub-group of the communication institution, and film professors make up a parallel group, especially as they collect in conferences and in societies (Andrews, 1985: 55).

Andrews’ point here echoes one we made earlier — namely, that film criticism itself is a product of complicated power relations. Theoretical dichotomies such as “mainstream versus avant-garde” or “art versus pap” are manifestations of deeper socio-political conflicts which are subject to analysis in turn.

Even if there is or was such a thing as “avant-garde” cinema, it no longer functions in the way that Horkheimer and Adorno envisaged, if it ever did. As they themselves recognized, one of the most remarkable features of late capitalism is its ability to appropriate and commodify dissent. Friedberg, for example, is right to point out that flaneurie began as a transgressive institution which was subsequently captured by the culture industry; but the same is true even of “avant-garde” film — an idea that its champions frequently fail to acknowledge. Through the use of niche marketing and other such mechanisms, the postmodern culture industry has not only overcome the “threat” of the avant-garde but transformed that threat into one more commodity to be bought and sold. Media conglomerates make more money by establishing faux “independent” production companies (e.g., Sony Pictures Classics, Fox Searchlight Pictures, etc) and re-marketing “art films” (ala the Criterion Collection) than they would by simply ignoring independent, underground, avant-garde, etc. cinema altogether.

All of this is by way of expanding upon an earlier point — namely, that it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the extent to which particular films or cinematic genres function as instruments of socio-political repression — especially in terms of simple dichotomies such as “mainstream” versus “avant-garde.” In light of our earlier discussion of Foucault, not to speak of Derrida, this ought not to come as a surprise. At the same time, however, we have ample reason to believe that the contemporary film industry is without question one of the preeminent mechanisms of global capitalist cultural hegemony. To see why this is the case, we ought briefly to consider some insights from Gilles Deleuze.

There is a clear parallel between Friedberg’s mobilized flaneurial gaze and what Deleuze calls the “nomadic” — i.e., those social formations which are exterior to repressive modern apparatuses like State and Capital (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987: 351–423). Like the nomad, the flaneur wanders aimlessly and without a predetermined telos through the striated space of these apparatuses. Her mobility itself, however, belongs to the sphere of non-territorialized smooth space, unconstrained by regimentation or structure, free-flowing, detached. The desire underlying this mobility is productive; it actively avoids satisfaction and seeks only to proliferate and perpetuate its own movement. Apparatuses of repression, in contrast, operate by striating space and routinizing, regimenting, or otherwise constraining mobile desire. They must appropriate the nomadic in order to function as apparatuses of repression.

Capitalism, however one understands its relationship to other repressive apparatuses, strives to commodify flaneurial desire, or, what comes to the same, to produce artificial desires which appropriate, capture, and ultimately absorb flaneurial desire (ibid., esp. 424–73). Deleuze would agree with Horkheimer and Adorno that the contemporary film industry serves a dual role as capture mechanism and as commodity. It not only functions as an object within capitalist exchange but as an ideological machine that reinforces the production of consumer-subjects. This poses a two-fold threat to freedom, at least as freedom is understood from a Deleuzean perspective: first, it makes nomadic mobility abstract and virtual, trapping it in striated space and marshaling it toward the perpetuation of repressive apparatuses; and second, it replaces the free-flowing desire of the nomadic with social desire — that is, it commodifies desire and appropriates flaneurie as a mode of capitalist production.

The crucial difference is that for Deleuze, as for Foucault and ACS, the relation between the nomadic and the social is always and already reciprocal. In one decidedly aphoristic passage, Deleuze claims there are only forces of desire and social forces (Deleuze & Guattari, [1972] 1977: 29). Although he tends to regard desire as a creative force (in the sense that it produces rather than represses its object) and the social as a force which “dams up, channels, and regulates” the flow of desire (ibid., 33), he does not mean to suggest that there are two distinct kinds of forces which differentially affect objects exterior to themselves. On the contrary, there is only a single, unitary force which manifests itself in particular “assemblages” (ibid.). Each of these assemblages, in turn, contains within itself both desire and various “bureaucratic or fascist pieces” which seek to subjugate and annihilate that desire (Deleuze & Guattari, 1986: 60; Deleuze & Parnet, 1987: 133). Neither force acts or works upon preexistent objects; rather everything that exists is alternately created and/or destroyed in accordance with the particular assemblage which gives rise to it.

There is scarcely any question that the contemporary film industry is subservient to repressive apparatuses such as transnational capital and the government of the United States. The fact that the production of films is overwhelmingly controlled by a handful of media conglomerates, the interests of which are routinely protected by federal institutions at the expense of consumer autonomy, makes this abundantly clear. It also reinforces the naivety of cultural studies, whose valorization of consumer subcultures appears totally impotent in the face of such enormous power. As Richard Hoggart notes,

Studies of this kind habitually ignore or underplay the fact that these groups are almost entirely enclosed from and are refusing even to attempt to cope with the public life of their societies. That rejection cannot reasonably be given some idealistic ideological foundation. It is a rejection, certainly, and in that rejection may be making some implicit criticisms of the ‘hegemony,’ and those criticisms need to be understood. But such groups are doing nothing about it except to retreat (Hoggart, 1995: 186).

Even if we overlook the Deleuzean/Foucauldian/ACS critique — viz., that cultural studies relies on a theoretically problematic notion of consumer “agency” — such agency appears largely impotent at the level of praxis as well.

Nor is there any question that the global proliferation of Hollywood cinema is part of a broader imperialist movement in geopolitics. Whether consciously or unconsciously, American films reflect and reinforce uniquely capitalist values and to this extent pose a threat to the political, economic, and cultural sovereignty of other nations and peoples. It is for the most part naïve of cultural studies critics to assign “agency” to non-American consumers who are not only saturated with alien commodities but increasingly denied the ability to produce and consume native commodities. At the same time, none of this entails that competing film industries are by definition “liberatory.” Global capitalism is not the sole or even the principal locus of repressive power; it is merely one manifestation of such power among many. Ostensibly anti-capitalist or counter-hegemonic movements at the level of culture can and often do become repressive in their own right — as, for example, in the case of nationalist cinemas which advocate terrorism, religious fundamentalism, and the subjugation of women under the banner of “anti-imperialism.”

The point here, which reinforces several ideas already introduced, is that neither the American film industry nor film industries as such are intrinsically reducible to a unitary source of repressive power. As a social formation or assemblage, cinema is a product of a complex array of forces. To this extent it always and already contains both potentially liberatory and potentially repressive components. In other words, a genuinely nomadic cinema — one which deterritorializes itself and escapes the overcoding of repressive state apparatuses — is not only possible but in some sense inevitable. Such a cinema, moreover, will emerge neither on the side of the producer nor of the consumer, but rather in the complex interstices that exist between them. I therefore agree with Cohn that anarchist cultural studies (and, by extension, anarchist film theory) has as one of its chief goals the “extrapolation” of latent revolutionary ideas in cultural practices and products (where “extrapolation” is understood in the sense of actively and creatively realizing possibilities rather than simply “discovering” actualities already present) (Cohn, 2009: 412). At the same time, I believe anarchist film theory must play a role in creating a new and distinctively anarchist cinema — “a cinema of liberation.”

Such a cinema would perforce involve alliances between artists and audiences with a mind to blurring such distinctions altogether. It would be the responsibility neither of an elite “avant-garde” which produces underground films, nor of subaltern consumer “cults” which produce fanzines and organize conventions in an attempt to appropriate and “talk back to” mainstream films. As we have seen, apparatuses of repression easily overcode both such strategies. By effectively dismantling rigid distinctions between producers and consumers, its films would be financed, produced, distributed, and displayed by and for their intended audiences. However, far from being a mere reiteration of the independent or DIY ethic — which, again, has been appropriated time and again by the culture industry — anarchist cinema would be self — consciously political at the level of form and content; its medium and message would be unambiguously anti — authoritarian, unequivocally opposed to all forms of repressive power.

Lastly, anarchist cinema would retain an emphasis on artistic integrity — the putative value of innovative cinematography, say, or compelling narrative. It would, in other words, seek to preserve and expand upon whatever makes cinema powerful as a medium and as an art-form. This refusal to relegate cinema to either a mere commodity form or a mere vehicle of propaganda is itself an act of refusal replete with political potential. The ultimate liberation of cinema from the discourse of political struggle is arguably the one cinematic development that would not, and could not, be appropriated and commodified by repressive social formations.

In this essay I have drawn upon the insights of Foucault and Deleuze to sketch an “anarchist” approach to the analysis of film — on which constitutes a middle ground between the “top-down” theories of the Frankfurt School and the “bottom-up” theories of cultural studies. Though I agree with Horkheimer and Adorno that cinema can be used as an instrument of repression, as is undoubtedly the case with the contemporary film industry, I have argued at length that cinema as such is neither inherently repressive nor inherently liberatory. Furthermore, I have demonstrated that the politics of cinema cannot be situated exclusively in the designs of the culture industry nor in the interpretations and responses of consumer-subjects. An anarchist analysis of cinema must emerge precisely where cinema itself does — at the intersection of mutually reinforcing forces of production and consumption.

[dykedvonte]

Reading MW takes on Twitter is like reading a summary of the Bible from someone who only watched like a Family Guy family special about it

[missmistborn]

My right to exist isn't a losing strategy. It doesn't take a backseat. I exist and other trans people will continue to exist for as long as people are a thing. Abandoning us now because we didn't win you the election is the knowing and willing allowance of our deaths.

We have a right to exist, whether you like it or not. We aren't hurting anybody, but so many people are hurting us. You don't have to be an active advocate for us, you just need to protect us from the people passing laws and spouting rhetoric ensuring that more of us die, whether by our hands or by others'.

[autisticmind]

Do you guys ever feel so much sudden rage at society for failing to provide the bare minimum support you needed/need to survive/thrive that you have to actually time. out. your mind for a while to calm down????

[ichthyorelationships]

an idea i invite anyone else to write about / run with lol....

the premise that The Change gets all messed up for alberto, say it's something that can happen from stress, &/or happens rarely and you just have to wait for it to resolve itself....used as some parallel to struggling through some emotional turbulence / upheaval / questioning / Realizing Things, etc etc

[girlivealwaysbean]

i think growing up is just life repeatedly sucker punching you and saying bitch you thought things were gonna better lmao no you're so naive and stupid for having hope in 20 years the world will be flaming bag of garbage and no matter how hard you work you'll get eliminated at some point

[casimania]

Never talked about my headcanon that Casimiro committed at least 1 murder before becoming a vampire.

I have various backstories for him and in one he was a troubled kid from a wealthy family (child of cheating right in the middle of other children and everyone acted like it didn’t happen but he looked different than all of his siblings and was also treated differently). A tutor tought enough corporal punishment could shape him up but miscalculated how angry Casimiro could get. He just turned on his tutor and basically beat the shit out of him in front of a couple of his siblings. Still have to decide if it gets swept under the rug and the family just tries to find a way to sort of hide away Cas and he just decides to skip town or if he goes on trial and manages to make a run for it out of sheer fucking luck or makes a run for it immediately.

Other backstory is not long before he gets turned into a vampire, he lives a life of gambling and petty crimes and either bites way more than he can chew and ends up in an accidental death, or he again flies off the handle and kills someone in a blind rage.

[nightseeye]

Saw dune 2 today, i think my favorite human-centric part of the movie is when they introduced the other harkoness nephew as a bad bitch w mommy issues then killed him off like an hour later

[tearlessrain]

I hope even one single person who refused to vote to preserve their Moral Purity realizes the monumental degree to which they fucked up

[y-rhywbeth2]

In themes, BG3 feels to me a bit like the original Baldur's Gate games and Neverwinter Nights 2 both got sequels and then they fell in a blender and accidentally came out as one game. More NWN2 than BG tbh:

Bhaalspawn shenanigans + references + location = Baldur's Gate

Githyanki presence + Illithid Empire threat, linking back to Gith's rebellion (and thus her sword, which was key to their defeat) + Plane of Shadow nonsense + undead villages consumed by the Shadowfell + the long overdue opportunity to punch Myrkul in the face + fuck you Karsus stop ruining things + human wizards with too close a relationship to the weave causing apocalyptic events + THANKS SHAR + my ongoing hobby of making life difficult for devils + *squinting at Withers* didn't I see you on the fugue plane? = Neverwinter Nights 2

I crave the silver sword of gith in this game. Lae'zel would lose her fucking mind.

[autisticcole]

Heheheheheho I have gotten some of the Dragon Age books (🏴‍☠️) and this is gonna really let me dig into some stuff, especially my favorite guy Cole, cause now I can read his OG appearance, I want to see how much stuff Cole says, especially during his quest actually makes sense, and how much is in-universe "both sides are right"ing about not listening to what Cole wants to do.

I am mainly talking about Spirit!Cole thanking Inky for not making him change... Despite the fact that thoughout Cole's quest Solas ignores what Cole wants (Like being binded) & wants to do (Kill the guy who beat beyond beating a 12 (at most) year old (most likely, it isn't outright stated (to my memory) the Templar who fucked up the paperwork was also one of the ones who physically abused him, but I feel it's a pretty safe assumption) & got that child killed due to neglect & faced no consequences) but ultimately the choice that causes Cole to thank the player for not changing him is the one where you listen to Solas over Cole (Or well Varric, who also doesn't let Cole do what he wants but is closer to what Cole would have done if he had went alone for the confrontation) & in this route I would say Cole's character changes a lot more, especially as he forgets the original Cole, which... Rubs me wrong, but I'll save my more detailed thoughts for 1. After I fully read Asunder & 2. Either a full Cole analysis or a detailed post about my thoughts on his quest & routes (& maybe how I'd rewrite them, as a Autistic person & a ally to the aroace community)

Anyways my point is that I want to see how true it is characters rejected or wanted to change Cole, I want to see what leads him to feel that having two men argue & tell him who he is supposed to be & do only to have a third person decide out of those two's options for what he should do is remotely a situation where he's been accepted.

[dogwoooooodspeaks]

young pretty cheetah

beautiful fast cool chetah

i love you cheetah